The Right Therapy: Exploring Options for Effective Mental Health Treatment

Psychodynamic therapy invites you to explore how your unconscious mind, interpersonal relationships, and early childhood experiences inform your psychological state. As Dr. Jonathan Shedler writes, “The essence of psychodynamic therapy is exploring those aspects of self that are not fully known.” Also referred to as insight-oriented therapy, this deeply self-reflective therapeutic modality allows you to identify how unresolved conflicts create dysfunctions that manifest in your present emotional and behavioral symptoms. As you gain a deeper understanding of yourself within the context of a trusting therapeutic alliance, you also activate the internal resources to disrupt self-destructive behaviors and find resolution to inner turmoil. Research indicates that psychodynamic therapy is highly effective for alleviating symptoms of a wide range of mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, and personality disorders, which are “notoriously difficult to treat.”

But psychodynamic therapy is not only about addressing specific symptoms; successful treatment should also “foster the positive presence of psychological capacities and resources,” such as enhanced self-esteem and awareness of your strengths, increased distress tolerance, a more nuanced understanding of yourself and others, and an expanded capacity for creating fulfilling relationships. As such, this form of therapy can be a powerful part of mental health treatment by attending to a full spectrum of emotional and behavioral needs.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a goal-oriented therapeutic modality that focuses on immediate, practical resolution to specific, contemporaneous problems. Rather than exploring the history of your emotional and behavioral symptoms, CBT provides structured guidance to identify and disrupt negative thoughts and behaviors and replace them with realistic, healthy, and positive alternatives. To facilitate this process, your therapist will use a variety of tools such as role-playing, journaling, and visualization to help you break away from damaging cognitive and behavioral patterns. For many, CBT can be remarkably empowering, helping you develop the skills to take control of your own psychological health and heal from even deeply ingrained patterns of suffering.

While originally developed for people experiencing depression, CBT has been found to be highly effective for the treatment of all types of mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, impulse control disorders, and eating disorders, particularly when integrated within a comprehensive mental health treatment plan. If you are experiencing a high level of acute symptoms that must be addressed immediately to preserve your safety or that interfere with your ability to effectively engage in deeper self-reflective exploration, CBT is often the best treatment choice in early recovery. However, CBT can be used throughout treatment for both immediate and long-term healing.

Relational therapy is a broadly applicable psychotherapeutic practice rooted in an understanding of humans as innately social beings whose interpersonal relationships have a profound impact on psychological wellness. Often, psychological distress is an expression of unresolved relational experiences and “inhibits the present self from full expression.” By exploring the nature of your social interactions and connections, the influence of sociocultural factors, and the impact of formative childhood experiences, you can gain a deeper understanding of your emotional and behavioral patterns and learn how to relate to both yourself and others in a healthy and fulfilling way. The client-therapist relationship is a central component of this process; by creating a safe, supportive, and trusting therapeutic alliance, you are able to participate in and observe how a positive relationship functions and benefit from the security and confidence it instills. Ultimately, relational therapy is designed to allow you to more fully express your authentic self while empowering you to form more meaningful and productive relationships.

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is an innovative therapeutic modality that seeks to create positive behavioral change while enhancing self-acceptance through self-reflective and skill-based intervention. This form of psychotherapy is structured around four modules:

• Mindfulness: You learn to nonjudgmentally observe and participate in your present environment, allowing you to understand and accept your current state of being while decreasing emotional volatility.
• Distress Tolerance: Using specialized techniques, your therapist will help you develop healthy responses to stressors and gain control over your emotional and behavioral reactions to uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and situations.
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: DBT teaches you how to participate in fulfilling, mutually beneficial relationships and cope with interpersonal conflict with honesty, respect, and fairness.
• Emotional Regulation: By exploring your emotional states and needs, you can begin to deepen your understanding of how emotions function in your life and validate your emotional experiences. Simultaneously, you develop new skills to form healthy, positive emotional responses to alleviate distress and fortify your well-being.

While DBT was originally developed for women experiencing suicidal ideation and self-harm, it can be a vital part of mental health treatment for a variety of psychiatric disorders and is considered the gold standard for Borderline Personality Disorder treatment. For many, DBT offers what they have not been able to find in other forms of psychotherapy: a path to both transformation and acceptance. As Will Lippincott wrote about his own experience with DBT, ” I found that just taking anxiety down a degree or two gave me a measure of control over my decision making in the presence of intense emotion. The lesson was profound. I couldn’t eliminate anxiety from my life, but I could learn how to tolerate it, and cope without making the situation worse.”